UPDATE:Rhymefest explained the diss track on his MySpace earlier tonight.

First of all, this whole thing between me and Chucky Cheese began last Halloween when I invited him on stage to a cipher for a show at Madison College where he was my opening act. He grabs the mic, turns to me and challenges me to a battle in front of my fans.

Then his guys come on stage with cameras trying to get a YouTube moment or something. He obviously didn’t understand the dynamite he was playing with. Long story short, I humiliated him.

Sometimes I become numb from hype. I’ll hear so much about something that when it finally drops, it’s like it’s not out, because I’ve seen the cover, heard the leaks, or seen the videos of the cats in the studio. I get so familiar with people that don’t have albums, much less more than a handful of songs. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it felt funny sometimes, but this is why I mess with the hip-hop internet game in the first place.

U-N-I is one of those groups. And it’s shame I was like that with them, because I denied myself hearing a pretty hot mixtape, if only for a day or two, but in 2009 on the internet, that’s an eternity, ya know? Straight outta Inglewood too, West Coast stand up!

New to us, but according to Just Blaze on Twitter, it’s an probably an American Gangster leftover, and probably not from Blueprint 3. Either way, it premiered tonite on DJ Envy’s show. I can see it being an American Gangster leftover; it’s got the vibe of the album, and the title/theme kinda match it too.

This dude has crept on the scene and gotten the attention of my blogging contemporaries and I pretty quickly. It’s guys like this who make me wonder why we choose to listen to what we do, when he have hundreds of tracks crossing our way every week. Maybe in this case it’s his name, maybe it’s the mixtape cover, maybe it’s the YouTube videos. I’m not sure I know why I checked him myself, but I wasn’t disappointed, because he’s different.

Theophilus is the latest to come to us from the new promising stable of New York MCs, who make heavy use of the electro/synth sound. I don’t mean electro/synth as in auto-tune, so don’t prejudge the man before you can zShare it.

He strikes me as a guy that represents growth in hip-hop, kind of like progressive rockers do in their own world. I heard David Banner say once that the reason he loved J Dilla so much was because he was a guy who represented hip-hop growing up and evolving. I’m not comparing this guy to Dilla (I bet I had a few of you scared for a sec), but it’s real different stuff like this that makes me think there are a lot of frontiers left in hip-hop.

This was a little unexpected, but definitely welcome, especially considering the video for “I’ll Be In the Sky” is blowin’ up right now. If you haven’t heard the track, it’s one of the better ones (and my favorite) off the Who the Fuck is B.o.B.? mixtape.

I hope Michael Jackson (or whoever owns the Beatles catalog these days) doesn’t try and sue B.o.B. for the sample. He isn’t directly profiting from the song, because it’s from a mixtape, but that doesn’t mean people won’t try and get a quick buck these days. There were grumblings not too long ago of someone who was trying to bring a case against artists who sample on mixtapes and songs they aren’t selling, arguing the songs build the artist’s profile and they subsequently profit from that. Girl Talk may have changed that though.

Here’s a leak from Drake’s upcoming mixtape, So Far Gone. That mixtape should be hitting the internets soon, like in-the-next-few-weeks soon. If you haven’t seen the artwork for the mixtape either, that’s the presumed cover-art above. “Unstoppable” was produced by Diplo (Santogold and Diplo together? Shocking).

With any justice, of all these rappers on the cusp on blowing up this year, Drake will be one of them. It doesn’t hurt to have Weezy cosigning you when he’s in his prime either.

You know times have changed when two guys can have a beef that ends with no diss tracks and is settled in less than 24 hours; all while getting the attention of a East/West Coast battle in ‘96.

If you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about, you shouldn’t feel bad because it may have the record for the world’s shortest beef (no homo). I’m talking about Wale and euro journalist/personality DJ Semtex.

It all started with this:

Apparently Wale had been doing a million interviews in Europe the other day and DJ Semtex, during his interview, caught this lil blurb on Twitter and proceeded to ask Wale about it. To listen to that “altercation,” check out Semtex’s blog here.

I put altercation in quotes, because it was hardly that. Don’t believe me? Go listen. The two were pretty civil and friendly about it. The real shit-show came after on Twitter. The two ended up going back and forth, “tweeting” at each other until they called a truce.

Wale clarified what he meant early on, saying, “let me retract ” I hate interviews that go nowhere..and are redundant” lol NOT interesting ones with good questions..ask hiphopgame and dx.”

I don’t think Semtex cared too much, because the two continued to exchange comments yesterday, until Wale apologized for what he said.

If you ask me, it’s always convenient for someone to say “what I really meant was…” and Wale is guilty of that, but let’s be real, the guy didn’t make a stink or act like a diva to Semtex. On a similar note, I can sympathize with Semtex because I’ve waited hours for interviews as well, only to be treated like trash (which Semtex wasn’t by Wale). He was only trying to defend his people and make a valuable point: you should look out for the people who help you do what you do. Moral of the story: even people in the hip-hop game get sensitive (pause).

The real phenomenon and story is how Twitter sped this war of words up and burned out the beef before it could start. If there wasn’t such a thing as Twitter, this thing wouldn’t have gone on too much longer anyway, because an artist beefin with a DJ… well there wouldn’t be any diss tracks, and thus, no one cares.